Microsoft scared of Google?

So I am sure that most of you know by now that Google bought YouTube for $1.65Billion (thats Billion with a B) yesterday. Not bad for a company that was started in Feb 2005 by a couple of geeks. The Dot Com era is back and is better than ever! Anyways; there are reports circulating that Microsoft was in the bidding war for YouTube, along with Yahoo. They lost yet again to Google. This morning I get a little email in my inbox from Microsoft Soapbox, Microsoft’s version of YouTube. It turns out that they have sent me a beta invite to try it out. I had signed up for it a few weeks ago. So it turns out they are opening it up to beta sooner than expected? Perhaps to counter the Goo-Tube behemoth!